Fatebinder’s Edict of Malediction

Fatebinder’s Edict of Malediction is a random encounter in Tales from the Tiers.

Transcript
The presence of the curse raises bumps across your skin the moment your strides take you into the area of its influence. The Edict of Malediction... a baleful presence that clings to you, testing your flesh with almost imperceptible prods as if trying to find a way in. It seems to recognize something kindred in you, sensing you as its progenitor. Perhaps only your connection to it allows you to perceive it at all. The long-suffering Blade Grave, previously yoked by the Overlord's Edict of Storms, now labors under your Edict of Malediction. The landscape seems stark, still, and cold, broken by twisting towers of metal bowing earthwards under their own weight. Tattered banners hang listless, their threads long ago robbed of their heraldry. Haven had been spared the worst of the Overlord's Edicts, mercifully unscathed by the horrors issued by Tunon's Fatebinders upon Azure and Stalwart. You ended that. Now carts line the road, their wheels or axles broken, and half the farmhouses you pass have collapsed under their own weight. The fields lie fallow, and those crops already grown have rotted on their stalks. As if the Contested Lands required a curse. Already the Overlord's Edict of Fire had reduced much of the mountainous area to ash and cinders, leveling not only the Vellum Citadel, but the few settlements and outposts that had sprung up along the roads frequented by the oft-itinerant Sages. You wonder briefly whether perhaps your Edict influenced the region even before you cast it. If somehow it weighted the strands of fate, twisting the Sages to their doomed refusal of Kyros' authority. Could such a thing be possible? The air carries the sound of distant rumbling to you as yet another of the Stone Sea's great earthen towers crumbles into the depths of Terratus, throwing a plume of debris hundreds of feet into the air. You haven't seen anyone in your journey, risking the sea having become too perilous for even hardened scavengers and Beastmen. Under the Overlord's Edict of Stone, a traveler needed only worry about the shifting land as it bucked with Cairn's death throes. Under your Edict of Malediction, however, nothing could be relied on. The land remained treacherous, but now ropes frayed and snapped, pitons slipped free of their anchorages, and food consistently spoiled before it could be eaten. Flocks of ravens fill the sky above Vendrien's Well, one group slowly circling the Mountain Spire. Your Edict of Malediction has consigned the people to a slow death by degrees as bridges collapse, fevers worsen, and every unattended ember leads to a conflagration. Each morning brings new petitioners to the citadel, peasants and former nobles alike begging you to release the realm from your degenerative curse. Just off the road you can make out a pile of tumbled boulders silhouetted against the horizon. Light glints from some small object at its apex. Investigate further. Continue on. As you approach the heaped rocks, you realize that they bear curious shapes. One freestanding stone looks very much like a boot. Another, a round, flattish boulder with four lumps along its edge, seems veined like the palm of a hand. The central pile, however, bears no semblance to anything recognizable. You crane your neck to get a better view of the gleam that caught your attention before, but you see nothing from this vantage. The stones don't look terribly difficult to climb, but they do seem precariously stacked... You ignore the rock pile and continue your journey. Climb the stones. Push the pile over. Use stone magic. Leave. You step onto the nearest boulder and grasp tightly the rock's ridges. You pull yourself up the side, your muscles aching, your fingers burning from the biting edges. By the time you reach the top, the skin of your fingers bleed from numerous abrasions. You're not sure what you expected to find at the top of the pile, but it wasn't an Earthshaker's purple-hooded head protruding from a fissure in the rock. A staff projects from a smaller fissure just to the left of the head, its end marked by a violet stone that glimmers with the cool light of active magic. A line connects the two objects, as if marking a seam in the rock. You press against the rocks, but they do not move at all. It feels as if more than merely their weight resists you. Weaving an incantation, you draw the sigil of Cairn, fallen Archon of Stone, and hurl a pulse of magical energy at the pile... The stones tremble beneath your powerful magic, and you slowly pull the tower apart, rolling each of the boulders to the side. ...but nothing happens. The apparently unstable pile does not so much as shift. It seems some stronger magic holds it in place. Among the rocks you find the body of a thin man. Lank gray hair hangs over his features, and he wears the fine robes of an elder Earthshaker. Held tightly in his hand is a staff, the purple gem at its head pulsing with faint magical power. You're easily able to pry it from his grasp. You find no clue, however, as to why he was here or what he was doing. Whatever secret led him to being entombed in stone died with him. Take the staff. Take the head. Leave. You make your way back down the rock pile and leave it behind you. Break the staff. Remove the head. The staff looks like it should slide easily free of the stone it is embedded in, yet it doesn't budge. You snap the Earthshaker's staff, and you feel a shudder in the stone beneath your feet, before you can react, your stomach lurches as the pile tumbles over. You leap free of the crashing boulders... Examine the head. You don't know how long the head has been here, but it shows no obvious signs of putrefaction. You grab it by its stringy white hair and slide a knife under the chin, sawing at the head. The work becomes slick as your hand and blade are quickly coated in blood. You saw through muscle and bone, but manage to get the head free of the stone. What's left is a mangled stump of bloody neck rising from the rock. The head has a little give... about as much as you'd expect of a head connected by a neck to a body. You might be able to force it free, but the thought is not a pleasant one. It still doesn't move. It's not of anyone you recognize. Greasy gray hair falls in tangles around the sunken features. The mouth hangs slightly agape, smeared with blood, and the eyes stare vacantly ahead. ...and land in a smooth roll before coming up to your feet. ...and land hard and unevenly on your right foot, sending stabbing pain up the length of your leg. Among the rubble you find the corpse of the Earthshaker, still in his fine robes. He has a few items on his person, including some potions, and you scrounge them. You find no indication of what he was doing here or how he became trapped in the stone. Among the rubble you find the corpse of the Earthshaker, still in his fine robes. He has a few items on his person, including some potions, and you scrounge them. You find no indication of what he was doing here or how he became trapped in the stone. Continue... Continue... Continue... Continue... Continue... Continue... Continue... The presence of the curse raises bumps across your skin the moment your strides take you into the area of its influence. The Edict of Malediction... a baleful presence that clings to you, testing your flesh with almost imperceptible prods as if trying to find a way in. It seems to recognize something kindred in you, sensing you as its progenitor. Perhaps only your connection to it allows you to perceive it at all. Continue... The presence of the curse raises bumps across your skin the moment your strides take you into the area of its influence. The Edict of Malediction... a baleful presence that clings to you, testing your flesh with almost imperceptible prods as if trying to find a way in. It seems to recognize something kindred in you, sensing you as its progenitor. Perhaps only your connection to it allows you to perceive it at all. Continue... The presence of the curse raises bumps across your skin the moment your strides take you into the area of its influence. The Edict of Malediction... a baleful presence that clings to you, testing your flesh with almost imperceptible prods as if trying to find a way in. It seems to recognize something kindred in you, sensing you as its progenitor. Perhaps only your connection to it allows you to perceive it at all. Continue... The presence of the curse raises bumps across your skin the moment your strides take you into the area of its influence. The Edict of Malediction... a baleful presence that clings to you, testing your flesh with almost imperceptible prods as if trying to find a way in. It seems to recognize something kindred in you, sensing you as its progenitor. Perhaps only your connection to it allows you to perceive it at all. Continue...